Bill Jensen and Van Gogh: Heir apparent

Artwork by Bill Jensen

The paintings of Bill Jensen in his early career are remarkable works. They are mere abstract forms made up of coils, trumpets, almost eluding to prehistoric figures, or ancient bones. These images are also painted in a manner consistent with early American modernist painters. The work puts him in connection with a tradition of American painters working in a similar matter. But Jensen's work is unique and exhibits his command for painting. The texture, color, and composition of this work exhibit a sense of mastery over his medium. They also embody a great sense of dimensionality in the abstract. This is what makes these works interesting, compelling, and relevant. I find a lot of inspiration from these works, and their color which is incredibly dynamic but in a way that is less conscious than his later paintings. I read that he used to not clean his brushes giving him interesting tonal effects. These are paintings that make you not want to just go to the studio and paint, but work for days in and out painting.

They are painted in a matter that Van Gogh would be proud of. We should not underestimate the genius of Van Gogh. When one thinks of the amount of work he created in just a short span of life, it's no wonder that Van Gogh thought of himself as a resurrected Jesus Christ. Even dying at the same age of Christ, 36. Van Gogh is the Christ of painters. He's a symbolic tale of an artist, who's struggle can be read about in various movies, and novels. If you haven't read Irving Stones "Lust For Life," I suggest you pick up a copy for it procures the myth of this artist as a spiritual figure sent down from heaven on a mission to make us truly SEE.

Bill Jensen is such an artist. His work of the 1980's painted 100 years after Van Gogh conveys the same passion for paint and art. Just think of Van Gogh laboring in a studio in Williamsburg with no pot to piss in (literally, he pissed in a hole connected to a sewer line,) and you got Bill Jensen in the 80's. He labored hard on these works, almost 7 years on some, and what you get is a sublime representation of the true artist. What Van Gogh made us see in the world around us, Bill Jensen of the 1980's made us see of the world inside of us.

You want to look in Van Gogh's ear? Check out Bill Jensen.

Spent The Weekend Making Art

and what do I have to show for it? Well, I would say that overall it did not really go so well. The best piece I will scan and post in correlation with this blog. I had one maybe minor discovery which made the weekend. Overall though, very frustrating and maybe a change in strategy is necessary. The minor success came from a water color and ink drawing that I made. I first made the designs of a figure with orange watercolor. A typical Smirnoff abstract. Then I fill in the design with a nice black ink acrylic. Then I scrubbed out the water color with some water and brush and what was left was the filled in black ink acrylyc which gave a nice stencil like quality???? This has enormous potential as far as future work. Perhaps interweaving some collage abstraction ideas here would produce some nice stencil like qualites and would be an enormous addtion to some of my abstract painting work???? But overall very frustrated with other results, made some ink on paper works copied from old postcards, but overally it looked like not much created more just transferrred and wasted a lot of time. Also, tried out some small icon paintings but did not get desired result. They look much better blown up and larger. But with lack of money and time and studio, I don't think I can pursue that until the sales of works starts flowing in, which proably won't happen because I don't have the personality that goes along with the type of artwork I make. What I mean by that is I'm not putting on a fashion show of coolness which goes hand and hand with promoting -marketing yourself as an artist. So I'm content to work these ideas out anyway until I really have something to say as an artist. I think that overall I have a lack of voice. I know I need to weave the political with the art, but I just don't seem to have the ability to fuse them together at the moment. I can express myself in words politically. But weaving the imagination with the political to make a statement. That is damn hard and I probably need to really think about this if I ever intend on being a successful artist.

Speckled Snake

Artwork by: Terry Whetston

I think political metaphors are a great well of information for images. From these oppressed stories there is some great poetry. Speckled Snake compared the "white man" to a little man when they first came to the America's, but it grew into a giant stepping over people. A monster? History has so much shaped the world in which we exist today. Civilization is the same, always needing growth and the persistence of power to remain strong. Look what happened to Rome? Every empire eventually crumbles. We have dual consciousness. We have what we are on a daily basis, and also what we could be potentially. Our daily selves are always striving to be more of our potential. But circumstance outside of our control do not allow us to achieve this. Perhaps in the near future, time and circumstance will allow us to be that which we so desire. But we are prisoners of outside forces that do not allow us to blossom in the way in which we could if circumstance were different. Thus, our imagination flows into endless streams, and some of us suppress these feelings, in order to pursue the more practical daily material happiness. But some of us linger in the land of possibility, always dreaming of a place where our imagination and abilities can take flight, free from the practicality and suppression of the world we currently live in. Some of us would fight for this dream, and some of us just allow the dream to be as it is. Those that fight risk a lot more and their struggle should be rewarded over time. I for one unfortunately only fight in the sense that I continue to ponder, dream, make art, and explore the realm of dream, whether through writing or other activities that active my imagination and curiosity. In my dreams I am not too different from Speckled Snake who lived beyond the years of 100 and his grossly accurate metaphors about the "white man." The world has surely created a monster which chains us all. Yet, the dream of freedom continues. Who will fight for it?

The Necessity for the Political in Art

I have come to the realization that I need to implement a political element in my artwork. This keeps the Art from being purely aesthetic and brings in the realm of the real. This will give meaning to the work and allow me to use all of my skills as an artist. The most convenient matter to perform this task is through collage. So lets do it!!!

New Approach

Gonna give painting a new approach. Been working on a bunch of watercolors. This really helps getting the painting juices flowing. I want to put down the graphic imagery first. Then Comes the Washes on top. Lets try it out and see what happens.

Free Sunday

So what does one do when contemplating action on a free Sunday in New York City? Well the beauty of living in new york is that you have a multitude of options. Of course, you have to pay for those options, in rent, and so forth. But that is why us suckers they call "new yorkers" put up with the outrageous rents and high prices for various forms of entertainment. Because we love having those options.

On Sunday, January 23rd I had one of those free Sundays where I decided to brave the cold weather and explore a little bit of the city on my own. I wouldn't say that I was exploring per say. I am a native new yorker and pride myself on knowing the city pretty well. My first idea was to hop on the L train and head towards Williamsburg. I wanted to see an art show that just opened at Sideshow Gallery call "It's All Good Apocalypse Now." This show features over 500 artists from the NYC area and includes some big names in Contemporary art. You get a feel for a certain sense unity in the art community here, and a definite leaning towards abstract expressionism. But these are the work that are most interesting here. I made an attempt to at least take a look at every piece, which I failed undoubtedly because of the amount that I had to look at. Overall, the show did not provide too much inspiration perhaps due to the claustrophobic feeling of all the work jam packing the walls. Although it was good to see the variety, there seemed to be a lack of appreciation almost for the art in the set-up which left me a little baffled and uninspired.

I ventured away from Williamsburg back on the L towards Manhattan's Chinatown, where I stopped over at Canada Gallery. I took the opportunity to ask the gallery attendant if he had any Michael Williams paintings in the backroom. Sure enough he took the time to pull out 4 paintings which I was grateful for, because I got to take a good look at the painting's all by myself wrapped up in plastic. I didn't really respond much to the Joe Bradley paintings in the Gallery which I saw as somewhat of a bore fest, although that artist is certainly putting this interesting NYC gallery on the map as far as progressive galleries are concerned of which I find that there are only a handful currently. The Michael Williams inside peak was a good look into an artist who's process I find interesting and he's one of the up and coming artists of my generation. I was also told to expect a show of his in NY late March.

After going to Canada, I took a peak in the New Museum in the east village of which I only glanced through a show called "Free." This show had a couple of interesting photographs but overall, did not get my aesthetic juices flowing. I then headed over to the Angelika Theater on Houston street to check out the movie "Somewhere." This movie is very good, although I think you have to know a little bit about the director and her history to really understand her motives as a filmmaker. The story is a simple, but the acting and cinematography make the movie. The story is about an actor who is kind of caught inside his own skin, unable to express himself emotionally in any way. When he begins to take care of his daughter for an extended period of time (he's divorced,) he develops a sense of passion for life and gains insight into himself as a person which he has been lacking for sometime. At the end of the movie, he has a breakdown which results in a chance to start over. The film was a nice one and the first I've seen in the theatre's for a long time.

After the film, I head over to Chinatown to meet my girlfriend and some of her work friends to engage in some oriental hot-pot. This meal was beyond my original expectations as I was able to eat a seemingly enormous amount of food for a set price. You cook your meat and veggies in a chili broth which makes your mouth sizzle for hours. Needless to say, it was an experience and we were the only customers in the whole place.

These are the highlights of a free Sunday in New York. New York allows you the freedom to improvise, be inspired, be filled with outrageous food for reasonable prices, and immerse yourself within the culture our society has created for itself. These are the moments I live for, wherever I am in the world. These are the moments that defy the weather because they allow you to focus on the memory of the moment as opposed to the bitterness of it.

Contemplating reality and possibilities

Art is light. The light from the sun causes everything in life to take action. Without the sun there would be no light and thus no energy, and finally no action. Art cannot exist without the sun. This is the entity that created all action here on this earth. There must be other planets in the universe that exist by way of their local battery source. Much like a computer plugged in to a socket, like the laptop I’m writing this article on, the planet receives its energy from the sun. The concept is very simple yet look at life’s ability to create. It is also easy to deduce from this that life must exist in many other parts of the universe, although who knows in what form. I would assume, using my very primitive brain that creatures on another planet would not be too much different from the kinds we see on this planet. And think about that possibility!!! This is also not mentioning the perspective that we are only capable as humans at looking at the world through a narrow perspective that are very limited gaze can really get a grasp of intellectually. I for one believe that the very next step of evolution will happen on this planet earth sooner than we can possibly think, but probably not in my lifetime. Which in the course of universal history is only a fraction of a second. I believe that the next form of evolution will occur when creatures dissolve mass and travel as light unaffected by extremes in space, and unharmed by the destruction that occurs to matter. Surely, if we can somehow learn to create armor for our bodies to the elements of destruction, and figure out a way to harness the intellectual mass over the bodily mass than we can truly reach our next stages of evolution.

Perhaps, none of this makes sense, and we will never truly be able to transcend death in physical and mental forms, then we will be force to continue the passing down of knowledge from one generation to the next. Eventually the step I described above will result in true evolutionary progress. How long will we choose to be bound to the earth while the rest of the universe is moving in different modes of creation than we can possibly imagine. A telescope and magnifiers can only do so much to show us this reality. I want to see it with my own mind and know for myself the truth of the universe rather than be bound down to my body and to the earth.